


This is Davey, By The Way

by tellthosewithpowersafeintheirtower



Series: My Love, Davey- Davey in the Refuge Newsies AU [1]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anxious Davey Jacobs, Anxious David Jacobs, Autistic Davey Jacobs, Autistic David Jacobs, Blood, Canon Era, Child Abuse, Davey Jacobs Needs A Hug, Davey in the Refuge, Davey in the Refuge AU, Davey's a gay awkward disaster and I love him, Everyone Needs A Hug, Falling In Love, Gay David Jacobs, Hurt, I.E. How To Realize How In Love With Two Boys You Are After Being Arrested, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jack and Crutchie are mentioned but not here, Letter from the Refuge AU, M/M, Pain, Pining, Polyamorous Character, Sadness, ish, song-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-06-23 13:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19702051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tellthosewithpowersafeintheirtower/pseuds/tellthosewithpowersafeintheirtower
Summary: Davey writes Jack a letter from the Refuge. So maybe he's a little in love with him and maybe he wants more than anything to know they're all going to be okay and maybe, maybe he's a little bit gone over Crutchie too and doesn't know what to do- but he'll be fine.He will....And if he isn't, Davey has a few things he would like to know he said to the boys he loves one last time.





	This is Davey, By The Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [All_the_Lovely_Newsies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/All_the_Lovely_Newsies/gifts).



> Holy heck it’s finally here! Hi friends, and… welcome to my newest AU becoming a series. I was originally nervous about whether I should post this at this time, but here we go. A huge shoutout to @all-the-lovely-newsies because I LOVE THEM and they were the first person to listen to me talk about this when I sent them like a couple paragraphs rambling about my ideas
> 
> There is [art](https://jackie-think-about-it.tumblr.com/post/186407487260/hey-yall-storytime-i) for this fic! The lovely jackie-think-about-it on tumblr made it for me (an art writing combo pair)! I am so happy right now, it’s so beautiful, please go give them love they’re just… the sweetest and I love their work so much. Thank you so much again!
> 
> A quick note: this is a Davey in the Refuge/his Letter From The Refuge AU, and in it his father had his accident at work a few months sooner and thereby Davey knew Jack, Crutchie, and the rest of the boys better by the time the story starts. I’ve really loved writing this and I look forward to sharing it with you all

> _Dear Jack,_

The harsh scribble of a pen on paper was as subdued as he could make it. The lanky, dark-haired boy was hunched over, perched on the edge of the top bunk. He was curled up, taking up as little space as he could manage and a mix of sweat and blood stuck his faintly damp hair to his forehead. His eye was beginning to bruise, colors pressing deeper near to the side of his nose, and two large blots of bruises were visible stretching both sides of his jawline. Davey Jacobs inhaled, a shuddery, ragged and stared down at the first words he'd managed.

The room was cold, and dark, and any sense of light seemed blotted out in an almost starless night distanced by solid stone walls, cell bars, and an island walled off from the rest of the city. The shame of New York City. Davey hesitated, tapping his pen to his chin, once, then twice. He sighed and scribbled it out.

> _Jack,_

No. Davey groaned quietly and after rapidly removing his second attempt furiously scrubbed at the paper. His wrists were marked with neat white lines from too-tight cuffs and he wondered idly if they'd look worse in a few hours time. Had it really only been a few hours since he'd stood in the Square, side-by-side with the others? Had it really only been hours since he last heard Crutchie laugh, watched him help Les tear a pape with his crutch, or felt his heart stall in his chest in terror when the bulls showed?

His sleeves were rolled up past his forearms and his vest was strewn awkwardly and torn around the edges. Some of his buttons were torn off and most every sense of the prim, neatly done school clothes and decorum had been entirely abandoned. Davey had no idea where his tie might even be. 

He rolled the pen between his fingers, hands trembling faintly before he huffed and pressed the tip and started to write again.

> _Dear Jack,_  
>  _Greetings from the Refuge._

Better. Davey sighed, ribs seizing painfully in protest. Dirt and soot smudged along his cheeks and face, and when he glanced down and around the tightly packed bunks and hunched, gaunt bodies he heard someone cough. Davey grimaced. He supposed it was a fitting intro.

> _How are you?_

He paused and bit his lip. He pulled his leg up to his chest to brace himself and he hissed sharply. Davey's breathing went ragged and he tried to purse his lips to quiet it, his ribs twinging and vision swimming dangerously. This... Davey was more bruised than he'd ever been before. He _ached_ in more ways than one. A thought struck him and he lurched forwards, pen shaking in his hand as he ignored the sudden spasm of pain in his chest.

> _Is Les okay? I suppose I wasn't much help yesterday._

Davey ground his teeth and breathed in sharply through his nose. This wasn't- this wasn't working the way he wanted it to. He reached up to scrub furiously at his eyes.

He really hoped Les had gotten out before the worst of it. The other boys had been in the midst of chaos, full out panic and screaming, and Crutchie...

Crutchie.

Maybe if he'd moved sooner they could've-

No. He couldn't go there. Davey dropped his gaze and felt his fingers twitch before he picked up the pen and tried to press on.

Les needed to be okay. He had to be okay because if he wasn't Davey- a harsh choked sound tore its way from his throat and he clamped a hand over his mouth, breathing in sharply. He went rigid, body going taught at this fierce shushing from the boys below him. He opened and closed his mouth, something twisting in his chest and he wanted to apologize. His mouth was dry and when he opened his mouth no sound came out.

He didn't think the kids here or the guards would talk too kindly to stammered apologies anyway.

(He didn't think they would take too kindly to the way sound and light burned too much too much too much and some days for all his smarts he couldn't make a noise. He didn't think the guards would like the way he blurted things out without realizing it was not supposed to be spoken and send senseless things casually and didn't like lifting his head to met someone's gaze.)

> _Snyder soaked us real good and went for Crutch._

Davey blinked, eyes flicking wider and he chewed at his lip nervously. Oh! Oh, right.

> _Oh, uh, Jack?_  
>  _This is David_

He faltered and swallowed hard. "No," the word was a murmur but his voice was cracked and rougher than he expected. The tall boy pressed closer to the scrap of parchment and traced out in neat script.

> _This is Davey, by the way._

Davey breathed his name and found the faintest hints of a smile on his features. _Davey._ Something about the way it fell from Jack's lips made something flutter inside his chest. He didn't think he'd be anything but harsh inflections of 'David' in days to come. He flinched at the thought and made a noise of pain at the way his ribs shifted unpleasantly. He wouldn't be all that surprised to find if they were badly bruised.

He wanted to hold on to being Davey as long as he could.

> _All these guards, they're just rude._  
>  _They say jump, boy, you jump or you're screwed._

Davey winced back. He shouldn't- he shouldn't say that. The words in his head sounded suspiciously like the newsboys' voices swelling in his head. Voices he wanted to cling to.

Jack knew that.

He'd been here before- he'd gotten out.

He didn't need to worry about Davey. He and Crutchie, the boys, they shouldn't- they didn't need to worry about kids like him.

But hands faintly trembling and something swelling in his throat, Davey couldn't bring himself to erase the words glaring up at him.

> _The food isn't so bad, not so far_  
>  _Since so far they've brought us no food!_

That... there was at least one positive, right? He made a noise and deadpanned in a murmur as he wrote:

> _Ha. Ha._

Davey had never been much good at humor. He'd never really understood it, and he wasn't really sure anyone would find it all that funny. He raised a hand to swipe the hair out of his eyes and felt his lips quirk into a sad, bitter half-smile.

> _I miss the newsies_  
>  _Sellin papers in the evening,_  
>  _And a partner at your side._

He bit his lip and tried very hard not to cry. Being draped under the arm of Jack Kelly, hearing the echoing cries of "strike" when all there was was bright laughter and friendly pats and being yanked into lingering embraces, all the echoes of vibrant unending life. Maybe he was poor at hawking headlines, but he'd loved it. He'd loved the-

The next words came without thought, scratching themselves out before his brain could catch up. The pen was shakier and moved faster in his hand than he expected.

> _No strike or blood to pay to just get by._  
>    
>  _Any way, you know what?_  
>  _The square took a fair bit of thought:_  
>  _Coax the bulls and get goons to the window._  
>  _They were scared so they took the first shot!_

An army of cops and goons- that couldn't be coincidence. It couldn't be coincidence that they'd taken brutal force against kids. They'd been ready to arrest whoever they could get their hands on first, to hit kids and cart them away with cold iron cuffs pinched against too soft skin. It couldn't be a coincidence they were lying in wait to pounce on the kids the moment they took a stand for themselves.

Crutchie had gotten out. Davey could only hope he was okay. The Delancey's had shoved him pretty hard but- but Crutchie was tough as nails and had landed a few good hits of his own and the boys had him. Crutchie had gotten out and, grasping for his crutch, had made it out of the Square with Race's help long before Davey finally let himself scream.

He couldn't go there (and maybe it hurt a little that it was hard to think of Crutchie without seeing horror and tasting fear fear bitter, biting terror and lungs burning but unable to scream).

He didn't want his last memories of Crutchie to be the way he saw him last so he tried to grasp- a witty comment, the way a proud half-smile curled on his features after perfectly Crutchie snark

Crutchie who made Davey's heart do stupid flips and feelings he had no idea how to decipher because what even _were_ feelings and why didn't they make sense- Crutchie who smiled and laughed like pure sunshine and yellow, beautiful, beautiful golden rays and Davey didn't know where to start but Crutchie was nice.

He missed them so much he ached in ways he didn't know people could ache and he didn't like it.

The cops appearance at the Square couldn't be a coincidence, the adults lying in wait to stop and smother any light or spark of life. It was too well-planned for that, Davey knew behind narrowed analytical eyes, and he thought the boys would be smart enough to realize that too.

He took a deep, steadying breath and shoved his other thoughts as far back to his mind as he could muster (he didn't want to remember) before scrawling out his next words.

> _It was hell for a night._

Davey felt his finger twitch, a compulsive jerk when he realized the curse had just escaped him, inked neatly onto paper. He could imagine his parent's disapproval- but all Davey managed was a tired smile.

It seemed silly and a thousand miles away by now.

> _That doesn't mean we've lost our fight!_  
>  _Pulitzer's regime's coming down,_  
>  _And then Jack I was thinking_

Davey's words crashed to a stop, and he felt as though the atmosphere around him had shifted. He froze. His breath was heavy and he blinked furiously against the burning of his eyes.

> _We might just go,_  
>  _If you were staying?_  
>  _We could run away an evening_  
>  _To the theater, or away_  
>  _And if Crutchie'd come_

The words spilled away, faster and faster, and that book-smart, smart-mouthed boy who'd fumbled into the streets with a slew of words echoed in his eyes. A lifetime of too many thoughts held away aching to be let out one last time.

Maybe Davey had spent too much time with Jack and his dreams of Santa Fe, but when he closed his eyes for a moment he wondered what it would be like. Beyond the cold damp walls and shuddering concrete, Jack and Crutchie's laughter filling the back of the theater. Just the three of them, together, somewhere beautiful and perfect.

His eyes flicked open and he remembered a too similar cry- was it only a day ago?

> _And if Crutchie'd come we'd seize our day_

He let out a shuddery breath. It sounded perfect. It sounded like a date, the ones stolen for boys and pretty girls and maybe Davey wasn't supposed to want a stolen night of kisses with a boy, let alone two, but he didn't care.

He could do it. One night of stolen moments with three friends, and maybe, maybe they wouldn't think the same and all it would be is friendship but he would take anything if it came from them. Anything at all.

When he curled his fists, he wondered if the same need to cling to that dream of just a night of Jack and Crutchie and him was the reason Jack had never given up on Santa Fe.

Santa Fe.

The seeds of a dream, not a plan. But there was something so comforting, achingly perfect about that. If a place was Jack's, and Jack's want for home, somewhere to love and breathe and belong then Davey knew his was Jack and Crutchie. Without a doubt. Maybe he was a little too late for that.

Maybe Jack and Crutchie deserved better than a kid who was street stupid and stuttered eagerly through long explanations about whatever oddity fascinated him the most, oblivious to the fact no one else seemed to care, and shied under attention and burning eyes and fumbled with words when um's and uh's and uncertain odd syllables twisted on his tongue.

> _Once the strike makes-_

The door skidded open and the reaction was like a gunshot. Boys jolted upright, leaping into position. His pen jerked hard, dragging an ugly line but Davey didn't have time to think about that. He desperately shoved the materials out of sight, hands trembling as he flung a mess of whatever cloth was nearest over his lifeline. He swung around, eyes wide, watching the looming figure who'd entered, held his breath and silently prayed.

* * *

When he stumbled back to his space in the bunk, Davey was bleeding. Badly. He was still shaking, feeling freshly forming bruises and aches he wasn't sure how to start to describe and he had to shut his eyes tightly to try and still his swaying his vision. With shaky hands, he fumbled in the dark and felt a weight of relief drop as he exhaled when his hands found the crinkling parchment of the letter. He drew it close and let his eyes rove down it and tried to smile.

Leaning into the candlelight, Davey ran a thumb along the dent and harsh scribbled line off the page at the end of his earlier phrase and winced.

Swiping blood to try to keep it from getting in his eyes, he coughed, or sobbed, some short painful noise that was gone as quickly as it came.

> _Damn this place._

The garbled curse was all he could muster. He didn't know what else to say. Shakily, he flicked a hand and tried to scrub the scarlet scattered drops off onto his pants and Davey somehow manage to keep blood off the paper. He swallowed a choked cry.

> _I'll be fine_

He bit his lip hard and pushed on, hoping he could get himself to believe it.

> _Good as new_

He didn't think he would be okay.

> _Look there's one thing I need you to do_  
>  _Newsies taught me what it all means to look after each other_

_I've never had friends, Jack,_ he wanted to whisper with that faint twinge of awe he felt hours earlier. _I've never had no one like Crutch and you._

Eyes setting with determination, he scribbled out his next message.

> _Please tell all the fellas for me to protect one another_  
>  _The end_

What was this, a novel?

When he heard a rattling cough and the bed creaked dangerously, Davey had to force himself to breathe. He didn't think he would be able to come out of here.

The strike had to go on.

Davey wasn't going to be there to see it.

So he set the pen to paper and hoped his smarts might be enough to give the boys one last push.

> __
> 
> _~~Your friend~~  
>  ~~Your **close** friend~~_

Davey swiped away a few shaky tears, breath hitching. And, selfishly, he decided on something he needed for himself. He breathed out and scrawled out with every ounce of care he had left.

> _My love,_  
>  _Davey_


End file.
